God created us as equal, so we should act like it

Marrying for love and life, many believe are gifts from God, and never should lead to death.

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seacoastonline.com

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Posted May. 28, 2014 at 2:00 AM

Posted May. 28, 2014 at 2:00 AM

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May 23 — To the Editor:

Marrying for love and life, many believe are gifts from God, and never should lead to death.

International pressure is mounting on Islamic Sudan to release a pregnant Christian woman sentenced to death for apostasy, the disaffiliation or renunciation of a religion by a person, neither of which applies in this case.

A court in Khartoum, Sudan, has convicted 27-year-old Mariam Yahya Ibrahim Ishag of apostasy and sentenced her to death. And, before that, to 100 lashes.

Mariam was convicted for marrying a Christian man, something prohibited for Muslim women and which voids the marriage. She is a Christian wife and mother who is eight and a half months pregnant with her second child. She is shackled to a bed in a Sudanese jail. The couple's 18-month-old son, Martin, is with her in the prison cell. So, the court is condemning the children to life without a nurturing mother. One would think that defies the logic of the love of God.

Mariam was born to a Sudanese Muslim father and an Ethiopian Orthodox mother. Her father left when she was 6, and she was raised by her mother as Christian.

The sentencing judge imposed Sharia law. Because of the Islamic court's refusal to acknowledge her 2011 marriage to Daniel Wani, she was also sentenced to the lashes for adultery.

Mariam's husband, Daniel Wani, lives in Manchester. He's a Sudanese immigrant with American citizenship. They own several businesses and a family farm there. Daniel is fighting for his wife's life. "I'm just praying to God. He can do a miracle," Wani's distraught brother, Gabriel, says from their Manchester home. Daniel arrived in Sudan on Monday to be with Mariam. He is appealing his wife's execution, which officials said won't be held until she gives birth and nurses her infant. "Her feet are shackled, her legs are swollen," he says.

Brutality. Inhumaneness.

Before imposing the sentence, the court said she had to recant her Christian faith, but Mariam refused, declaring: "I am a Christian, and I will remain a Christian."

As in many Muslim nations, women in Sudan are prohibited from marrying non-Muslims, though Muslim men can marry outside their faith. By law, children must follow their father's religion. Mariam's father was Muslim, but he left her mother when she was 6, according to her family's attorney. Consequently, she was raised Christian.

New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte calls Mariam's sentencing "outrageous." Four other U.S. senators have condemned the sentence. Their resolution asks Sudan to respect religious rights if it wants the United States to normalize relations with the African nation.

"I am disgusted and appalled by the inhumane verdict Ms. Ibrahim has received," says Sen. Marco Rubio, of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "I commend Ms. Ibrahim's courage in refusing to renounce her Christianity, and I encourage her to remain steadfast. The world condemns her verdict."

Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, chairman of the House's International Religious Freedom Caucus, minces no words. "Such blatant disregard for the value of human life — and religious freedom — is an indescribable disgrace."

Government officials in Canada, England and the Netherlands have also condemned Mariam's sentencing.

Where is our Department of State in all of this? It has been almost silent.

By no means am I a scholar of religions, but this I know: The Abrahamic religions have a certain unity in common with each other, and, I like to think, not by accident. It's Gabriel.

In Judaism, the archangel Gabriel is a messenger sent from God.

In the Bible's Old Testament, Gabriel appeared to the prophet, Daniel, delivering explanations of Daniel's visions (Daniel 8:15—26, 9:21—27). In the Gospel of Luke, Gabriel appeared to Zecharias, and to the virgin Mary foretelling the births of John the Baptist and Jesus, respectively (Luke 1:11—38). In the Book of Daniel, he is referred to as "the man Gabriel," while in the Gospel of Luke, Gabriel is referred to as "an angel of the Lord" (Luke 1:11).

In Islam, Gabriel (Jibra'il), is considered one of the four archangels whom God sent with his divine message to various prophets, including Muhammad. The 96th chapter of the Quran, sura Al-Alaq, is believed by Muslims to be the first surah revealed by Gabriel to Muhammad.

God sends Gabriel to appear in all three religions, how then can there be separateness except that created by men? God unites, men divide.

It's easy to extrapolate from this that the God (Allah), to whom billions pray has to be, must be, one and the same for all those religions. So how can anyone interpret one's own religion to be above and beyond the others? Or better? That flies in the face of their commonality, of oneness. By definition, the God of one is God of all since God created all things and without "him" nothig was created. The only thing we all can correctly assume is that we're all in this together. Humanity is much like the human body. All body parts must perform in synergy or life suffers or dies.

To do any job well, one has to personally experience every aspect of their work. Accordingly, I propose that all those anywhere who sit in judgment be required to experience the same punishment they deliver so they have first-hand knowledge of what it is they do. I suspect that would change a lot of man's "laws." And, remember that when one judges another, he really is defining himself.

Man's inhumanity to man must reorder itself to man's benevolence to man if we are to elevate as a species. Love is needed, not whips. Mariam is about to present the world with another child of God. If she is beaten, then executed, no religion is exalted, nor any of us, nor the world.